To the West Bank Authority, In Plain Words

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Whoever thinks his disputes with Hamas grant him a certificate of absolution to raise the pace of security and political cooperation and coordination with the usurping Zionist entity is mistaken; and whoever thinks that people do not see, do not hear, and are not aware — even in theory — of the reality of what is unfolding in the way of warm, intimate relations being cultivated with both the Zionists and the United States, is very much mistaken. Here, by cooperation and coordination, I do not mean those activities related to running the daily life of the Palestinian people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, but rather the political, security, normalization-related, and financial relations, along with the personal privileges that come with them.

I am fully aware that the West Bank authority is part of an undeclared Arab-Zionist-American axis confronting another, equally undeclared axis — that of Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran — and that it has enlisted itself as a tool to give the impression that the Palestinian cause is on the verge of setting, accompanied by promises of establishing a Palestinian state. This authority tries to give this impression as its own contribution to easing the task of a number of Arab regimes that wish to declare their alliance with the Zionist entity, in order to preserve their own existence against the rise of forces of change in the region — whether in relation to the opposing axis or to the forces of resistance and rejectionism in general.

Whoever wishes to object will stand up and say he refuses to be classified as part of an axis that includes Israel. Whether you refuse it or not, you are submerged up to your ears in this axis. You subsist on the money Israel permits to enter, and you are protected by the Israeli war machine. Whether you like it or not, whether you refuse it or not, whether you rage against it or not, you are now under the protection of the Zionist occupation army — it is the one providing you the military cover that keeps you in your office. There is an internal Palestinian balance of power that is real and tangible, and you are its weaker party; you will not have the strength to hold out if the confrontation none of us wants or wishes for comes to pass. You are weak, organizationally and militarily, and you are also too feeble to stand before the people arguing the bitter truth that will keep chasing you. And the greatest proof of what I am saying is that you suppress the free word, and I find no outlet in the West Bank’s own media. But my forbidden word will triumph over all your published words — my word is revolution, and your words are scattered static.

…[the officials] in the Fatah movement and the Liberation Organization, from 1967 until the Oslo Accords, on this very matter. We are in no position to swallow back our revolutionary words, the ones the Palestinian people believed in and for which martyrs and enormous sacrifices were offered in their defense; and we do not play games with language and with the substance of the debate in order to justify collapse, concession, the committing of grave sins, and the violation of what is forbidden. A person grows larger when he withdraws because of his own failures, and grows smaller when he busies himself searching for excuses for his failure.

O President of the Palestinian Authority: do you consider what Hamas did (if it was indeed an assault, which I do not believe it was) to exceed what the Zionists have done, such that you open channels with the enemy while closing every door in the face of Hamas? Do you have the capacity to face an open public debate, so that we might understand from you precisely where Hamas committed its crime, and precisely where the Zionist enemy did good, so that we might follow your lead in developing good relations with Olmert, Barak, and Livni? And you, Mr. Prime Minister — could you possibly recount to the Palestinian people your feats of heroism and your sacrifices, so that we might understand how Hamas is such a dwarf in the struggle that it justifies your leaping over it to place your hand in the hands of the Americans and the Israelis? I am not against the two of you disagreeing with Hamas. Disagree as you please — but it is categorically unacceptable that this disagreement be translated into cooperation and coordination with the enemy. Who am I to object? I am a Palestinian citizen stronger than the two of you combined, and stronger than America’s money and Israel’s weapons. Israel has used every kind of weapon against me, yet I still stand, refusing to yield; America has used money against me to starve me, yet I still eat. I am a Palestinian citizen who knows how to plant and reap, how to be frugal and content with little, and who keeps his house lit by lamp and lantern. Do you two remember? Do you remember how the entire world stood against Hamas in the legislative elections? The power of the whole world collapsed before the voice of the Palestinian citizen, and Hamas won.

I hope I am not understood to be defending Hamas, and I remind the President of the Palestinian Authority here that were it not for Hamas’s position on the Palestinian presidential elections, I would have won against you. Hamas did you a favor and stood by you when it decided not to vote in the presidential election, and you are the very first to defend Hamas — the same Hamas whose passivity carried you to the seat of the presidency of the Authority. I remind you only of what passed between you and Mashal in conversation, and how you ended up rejoicing when he reassured you that Hamas would not take part in the presidential elections. For me, this matter has no personal dimension and no dimension of self-interest; rather, there is a homeland, a people, rights, sorrows, pains, sacrifices, tears, and sighs that we do not squander and do not take lightly. Leave what you two are doing and what you stand on — this is a path that has profited no one but the two of you, and its results will bring nothing but ruin upon us and upon you.

Disappointment has come to all who thought well of Israel and America — so do not be among those who deceive themselves and thereby open the door through which the winds of ruin come howling in.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “إلى سلطة الضفة بلسان فصيح” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.